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International tax-free shoppers from the US, Middle East and China are stocking up on premium and designer-led collections from high-street favourites such as Topshop, Jigsaw, Warehouse and Marks & Spencer in the UK and fast-fashion chains H&M and Zara across Europe, as the trend for ‘premiumisation’ continues in the fashion industry.

ZARA SS16 ad campaign

According to tax-free shopping specialist, Global Blue, globe shoppers are registering increased transactions in the mid-priced high-street stores category, especially for fashion and accessories. A sign that as middle-class Chinese consumers find their travelling feet, they are also shopping tax-free in Europe across price categories.

Americans in particular are coming to the UK and Europe for the cultural attractions and shopping opportunities, driven by the favourable FX. While in Europe, they are starting to show stronger transactions for tax-free shopping (TFS) than the Chinese. American globe shoppers registered a +67% increase in TFS sales in Europe for 2015, according to Global Blue data. This is not likely to change as market analysts expect the dollar to further appreciate in 2016.

Premium prices for premium product

After 10 years of delivering designer collaborations, H&M is still riding the wave of premium fashion on the high-street. ‘Balmain-mania’ in early November 2015 was a significant peak for this trend, when the Swedish retail giant partnered French luxury brand Balmain for its annual designer collaboration. The collection was backed up by high-profile advertising and social-media activity to produce the highest priced merchandise range yet –emerald sequin or pearl-encrusted dresses and jackets retailed for up to £300 – and later re-sold on eBay for more than £1,000 in some cases. ‘Our collaborations have a huge effect on the designers now, after 10 years; it puts them on the global map,’ says H&M’s global creative director Donald Schneider. ‘The result is that it’s changed the way people integrate with H&M. It has become acceptable to mix high and low fashion,’ he told the audience at WGSN’s Creative Futures event in 2015.

European fast-fashion chains maintain global expansion plans

European fast-fashion conglomerates Inditex (owner of Zara, Pull & Bear and Massimo Dutti) and H&M (owner of & Other Stories, Cos and Monki) continue to expand into China and the US, despite the strength of the US dollar hitting H&M profits, and ‘balmy’ winter temperatures in the US, according to Bloomberg. This global domination is having a reverse effect on how those nationalities shop for fast-fashion when they visit Europe, and the favourable FX rates mean they can buy more from their favourite brands. As the middle classes from emerging markets such as China and South America take more overseas trips, they are increasingly shopping while overseas.

COS is doing much to raise the profile of fast-fashion or high-street brands by focusing on aspirational design-led collections at mid-market price points. It is expanding into the US and attracting a more international customer at its stores across Europe.

This global domination is having a reverse effect on how those nationalities shop for fast-fashion when they visit Europe, and the favourable FX rates mean they can buy more from their favourite brands. As the middle classes from emerging markets such as China and South America take more overseas trips they are increasingly shopping while overseas.

Spain: a Eurozone growth hotspot

In particular Zara, the most popular Inditex retail brand, has keener price points in Spain, where production costs are lower for the vertical fashion operator. Spain is a pocket of growth in Europe, according to Global Blue data, where globe shoppers from Argentina, Brazil, Morocco and Mexico are all in the top 10 nationalities. They are making the most of the weak euro, driving increased TFS sales here.

British design, global appeal

The British high street is having a designer-collaboration renaissance for spring/summer 2016 and it is attracting renewed global attention. After being the first major retail brand to show on the catwalk at London Fashion Week in 2005, Topshop is still flying the flag for British design with its Unique collection, which is one of the most influential shows of the week, according to the Financial Times, and sells to high-end department stores in New York and Tokyo. Prices for the limited-edition Unique collection are increasingly between £300 and £800 for sequin or velvet dresses that sell out quickly.

Jigsaw is another British high-street brand elevating its status in the UK with a new premium range, A-line, which is pitched as high-design and higher priced. A-Line has been developed especially for the brand’s flagship store locations, and should appeal to a more luxurious international customer. The move has already paid off according to a Jigsaw spokesperson, who says the Duke Street store has seen an influx of high-spending Americans recently.

Marks & Spencer is under pressure to make its fashion collections relevant again, especially as it expands into overseas territories such as Western Europe and China, albeit at a slower pace than previously planned. A new ‘vintage-inspired’ collaboration with model and celebrity Alexa Chung may well be the successful campaign the retailer needs to attract a younger, more contemporary customer. The Archive by Alexa Chung collection launches in stores in April, and features 31 revived M&S classics ‘re-worked’ by the model with a focus on well-cut tailoring, superior quality fabrications and the British heritage factor that has international currency for the brand.

UK high-street brands Karen Millen and Reiss have an elevated brand perception in the US, thanks to well-positioned ‘flagship’ stores and premium priced merchandise selections. With shearling coats around £1,300 and leather jackets in the £800-£1,200, these brands’ price points easily rival major designer brands such as Gucci, writes the Guardian. These ‘mid-market’ retail brands have cleverly translated their British design credentials into international brand appeal. And when they are shopping in the UK, American globe shoppers can ‘bargain’ shop thanks to the favourable currency exchange.

Key takeouts:

British high-street brands are driving a designer-collaborations renaissance

H&M has a decade-long legacy of ‘premium’ designer collections and prices to match

As digital activity around fashion week becomes arguably more important that the physical shows, the fashion industry is acclimatising itself for a Fashion Month where Insta-shows, influencer-clicks and on-demand eyeballs are the new goals.

Misha Nonoo SS16 insta-show

Livestream or be damned

Now that livestreaming has become commonplace and you may as well watch your favourite show at home out of the rain (in London), the focus has shifted to livestreaming with the added bonus of tracking followers. After Periscope burst onto the scene in March this year, and Burberry, then Dunhill, Belstaff and Marc Jacobs have all used the Twitter owned-platform to beam shows, backstage tidbits or Q&As to live global audiences, the industry is changing its mind about the question of exclusivity.

‘Periscope allows true consumer access to the best in fashion month,’ Tank magazine fashion director Caroline Issa tells Forbes magazine in an interview. ‘It means a wonderful inclusion and access to what was [once] truly exclusive – it’s a step closer to the action.’

#FashionUnfiltered is the buzzword of the season according to Periscope’s marketing team, who have witnessed the channel’s popularity with the fashion industry go through the roof. ‘Now Periscope is changing the digital landscape,’ says David Wilding, Twitter’s head of planning. ‘It’s a broadcast app that makes whatever you are doing live to all your followers. We are always thinking about how fashion brands can include fans into content. Now that’s possible live and immediately on Periscope,’ says Wilding.

Ralph Lauren and Hunter Original are leading the Periscope action for SS16 in New York and London respectively. While Ralph Lauren’s show yesterday showed it’s possible to target both fashion cities at once, via its dual Periscope presence – live and direct from the brand’s show held in Manhattan’s Skylight Clarkson Square simultaneously beamed to anyone in the vicinity of a giant screen in London’s Piccadilly Circus (below) – it is also worth pointing out that should their followers be inspired to shop, they can of course pop into nearby flagship stores in each city. But digital reach is clearly front of mind for EVP of global marketing David Lauren, who told WWD: “There are the [estimated] two million or so people passing through Piccadilly each week, and very few of them probably expected a front row seat to New York Fashion Week.”

Ralph Lauren livestreamed its SS16 New York show at Piccadilly Circus via Periscope

Hunter Original continues its association with backing new music talent, and following in Burberry’s footsteps (the first fashion brand to partner with Apple’s new streaming platform for its show on Monday), it is leveraging the live aspect of Periscope by offering coverage of gigs from bands on Hunter Original’s radar in the run up to tomorrow’s show. The brand plans to continue giving access via Periscope to its choice of music acts ahead of a busy festival season into 2016. I like this type of nurturing brand behavior that also chimes with its brand DNA.

While it wasn’t on Periscope, Givenchy (below) underscored the new inclusive point of view by presenting its SS16 show in New York instead of Paris. Reaching a bigger audience was the goal, with a mega show that was opened up to the general public on the anniversary of 9/11, bolstered by the associated symbolism of artist Marina Abramovic’s spiritual set design, not to mention the celebration of Riccardo Tisci’s decade-long tenure at the house. This show encapsulated the idea that shows are now a living, breathing brand statement to be shared around the world for all to see. This emotive event has surely kick-started a sea-change where digital reach is now more important than physical attendance.

Givenchy SS16, New York

Meanwhile, Burberry is again pushing the digital envelope with a pre-live show built into its live show this LFW season. The British luxury brand is upping the social platform action via a new partnership with Snapchat (below), that will air finishing touches being made to key collection looks on the millennial channel of choice 24 hours before the official Burberry show and then disappear. While Snapchat’s 100m users are being targeted in this campaign, the use of ephemeral, teasing backstage show imagery is the currency of the Snapchat generation and gives Burberry a longer social conversation, ahead of its key LFW show slot.

The Burberry Snapchat Show

Influencers are the new editors

Thanks to the influencer nature of Instagram, brands are now using the platform to host insta-shows instead of physical shows, with the aim of reaching editors and consumers alike.

New York designer Misha Nonoo chose an Insta-show (top) instead of her usual presentation after a meeting with Facebook chief Sheryl Sandberg that inspired Nonoo to make the most of ‘this amazing visual storytelling platform” and the way it allows designers to interact directly with their customers. The ‘show’ took place last week, during NYFW and while her followers on a dedicated Instagram could flip their mobiles to see a continual flow of all Nonoo’s 21 looks (and immediately pre-order via the designer’s website), there was the extra interactivity layer from Nonoo’s female fan base. Entrepreneurial women from the arts, political and business worlds – including entrepreneur Linda Rodin, Sara Mears of the New York City Ballet and political consultant Audrey Gelman – responded to Nonoo’s call out to style themselves in her clothes and post images to their Instagram accounts at the same time as her show. With their combined followers of +7m on the platform and Nonoo’s pioneering attitude to experimenting with the show format, this feels like a pivotal moment.

Eva Chen Instagram

British designer Zoë Jordan is another designer using a digital-only show format this season, courtesy of PR and production agency KCD’s new Digital Fashion Shows. Jordan showed her SS16 collection first during NYFW and will repeat the show during LFW’s digital schedule on Sunday at 10.30 via a screen in London’s Golden Square. ‘I’ve seen a lot of brands taking a step to a more all embracing show model this season…it felt important to invite the public to be part of it,’ says Jordan. ‘I layer digital with physical – a virtual show is complemented by a physical showroom, and this melding of disciplines feels right for my brand.’

Zoe Jordan SS16 digital show via KCD’s digital platform

Insta-inspiration

It’s clear that Instagram is increasingly becoming the go-to visual portal for behind the scenes storytelling. In New York both Proenza Schouler and new DKNY creative directors Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborn of Public School fame, have offered followers exclusive tidbits and a highly curated window into their creative worlds.

While the Proenza Schouler visual essay project (below) was to coincide with the new AW15 deliveries and was drip fed over five days via the brand’s account, the DKNY exercise was intended to set the tone of voice for a new era at the brand. Since her appointment as fashion director at Instagram over the summer, Eva Chen certainly seems to be leaning into an inclusive new fashion remit at the platform, that the fashion industry can’t get enough of.

Proenza Schouler AW15 behind the scenes Instagram visual diary

Colour me up

With its usual pre-LFW fanfare, Topshop has launched a new democratic digital initiative, which aims to utilise its customers’ colour preferences gathered from fashion week images on Pinterest. The exclusive partnership called Pinterest Palettes allows users in the UK and the US to create colour-driven mood boards based on their favourite fashion week designers or street style stars.

As with previous seasons, Topshop is again taking a ‘phygital’ approach to its LFW campaign by straddling both online and in-store customer interaction. Pinterest Palette services will be available in the Oxford Circus, London store where a dedicated pop-up on the lower ground floor will host colour-themed personal shopping appointments and daily colour-themed AW15 merchandise on display. The campaign runs throughout fashion month, until the close of Paris on October 7.

Topshop’s Pinterest Palette campaign for LFW SS16

What does it all mean?

If Periscope is the new video, then Instagram is the new form of print – certainly in terms of visual culture. And as far as fashion weeks go, they are now an inclusive, widely democratic affair where digital reach and influencer clicks are the watchwords for success.

The London edition of Decoded Fashion’s summit was held over two days last month and saw industry speakers and panelists discuss topical themes such as technology’s role in-store, retail 3.0, social selling and the power of personalization in a mobile-first digital landscape.

Decoded Fashion 2015

In-store tech: gimmick or UX?

The argument for interactive technology in-stores is increasingly important for retailers that want to both impress and engage consumers on a digital path to purchase. ‘We are still a stores business, so digital is now becoming seamless with retail,’ says Kate Walmsley, digital director Topshop. ‘People talk about UX (user experience) on mobile or tablets, I’m more concerned with the UX in-store,’ she says, adding that Topshop’s recruitment process is increasingly focused on people with half digital, half fashion skills.

‘We want to be truly global in our digital communications, we are starting to think about live streaming localised content through all our social channels in real time in-stores,’ says James Wintle, CTO All Saints. All Saints collaborated with Google in 2014 to ensure the whole company was digitally integrated, explained in this Youtube video.

ROI for the use of innovation labs and no-holds barred blue-sky thinking around technology selling tools was hotly debated at the summit. ‘Playing around with how tech might work in-store is important to recognise if it’s a gimmick or not,’ says John Vary, innovation manager at John Lewis. ‘We created Room Y, where there are no barriers, the team can think by making,’ says Vary who adds one of the team’s recent projects to be tested in-store has been a digital tool for its Any Shape, Any Fabric sofa service, using 3D printing and RFID tags to aid customers making a sofa colour or style choice.

After investing in its ‘connected changing room’ concept in 2014 at new store locations in New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong, Rebecca Minkoff has seen a sales uptick. ‘30% of customers who use the service are selecting items they didn’t pick out on their first tour around the store and we’re selling 2.5 times more than we thought we would. We’ve had phenomenal learnings from the integrated technology, it’s not gimmicky,’ says co-founder Uri Minkoff.

Rebecca Minkoff connected store

Minkoff says brand communications can be hyper localized via the integrated content management system in each store, where where RFID tags track every garment and each customer has a store visit history. ‘We can be relevant by geographical content on the screens, we can serve up great assets per store,’ he says.

Minkoff wants to use the brand’s proprietry store technology to address challenges such as: identifying a more personalised conversion funnel, disrupting its supply chain, facilitating a more convenient shopping experience in-store either by self-scanning products, or just to stop customers self-aborting their purchases. ‘We call it Retail 3.0 others have called it dressing room therapy,’ he adds.

Retail 3.0

Amazon is preparing to up its game as an online fashion destination.

This summer the e-commerce giant will open one of the largest (46,000sq ft) photographic studios in Europe – purely for its fashion content output.

Amazon Fashion’s studio in Hoxton, London

‘We don’t want to create the world’s largest outlet centre online, so we have to think about selling fashion differently to say media or consumer electronics or food,’ says Sergio Bucher, VP Amazon Fashion EU, adding: ‘we are already one of the top 10 fashion companies in the world, in 2014 we sold 2m fashion items a week.’

For Amazon, future innovations are in ‘silent tech: stuff the consumer doesn’t see, tech that helps us deliver what our customer wants, when they want it,’ says Bucher, who’s goals are to focus on selection, convenience and price. He says the high return rate of between 40-60% in Europe, is a necessary cost the company is willing to bear. But it is addressing these market conditions with complex predictive shopping algorithms. ‘We have recently launched fit reviews for products where we are crowdsourcing accurate fit information. Anything over 50 answers is deemed useful. Or Amazon has started suggesting products based on previous and similar customer profile purchases, where there have been no returns. Here Amazon is using its vast data to reach a probable purchase scenario. When you have 26m items available, you have a lot of customer behaviours to mine,’ explains Bucher.

Returns are a necessary cost for online retailers, but according to Joel Freeman, co-founder of the Tinder-like shopping app Grabble, the bedroom is the new changing room. Freeman says mobile is for younger customers and lower purchases. ‘Its easy to click and buy on your mobile device. Mobile is for snackable content when there’s low risk for pressing the buy button. If you’re spending four figures, you are more likely to use a desktop,’ he adds.

A one-click purchasing experience is becoming increasingly important, especially to impatient millennials. For Grabble, Freeman says it’s about making it as easy as possible. ‘We have a new payment app launching this summer – it’s modeled on Uber. People don’t like to tap words and numbers into their mobile devices but they are happy to just click,’ he says, adding future platforms will have payment details stored for convenience and a more seamless click to purchase experience.

Christian Drehkopf, head of mobile apps at Zalando is watching how messaging apps are emerging as a multi-channel that integrates across both social networks and commerce. ‘Mobile is now about convergence. It’s about engagement at different times of the day. Instant chat apps such as Facebook Messenger are going to be important new channels for marketeers. Developers are building commerce into messages as a new layer, because you can get hold of that customer more regularly – up to 16 times per day. Mobile is an amazing multichannel tool to connect the digital and offline store environments,’ he adds.

Finery London

Finery London was launched as a true branded retail experience online, says Caren Downie, brand director. ‘You can attract people through organic word of mouth. Advocacy among the right target market is crucial,’ she says. Adding another layer of offline experience was key for an unknown brand. ‘It’s about that initial engagement with the brand, our customers need to understand the quality of the fabrics and the fit, so Finery London’s fitting room pop-up was crucial to drive engagement and then encourage people to get back online to order,’ she says.

Luxury’s digital awakening

For the CTO of MatchesFashion.com, ensuring the company’s website was both totally global and fully mobile optimized was an integral part of the brand’s omnichannel journey. ‘There are no differences between reading our content on desktop or mobile devices, says Sam Lowe. ‘It’s seamless and we have moved to being a globally scalable ecommerce platform with merchandising and payment systems working in tandem so that we can track every single product at any time.’

MatchesFashion.com

The editorial, buying, digital and engineering teams all think globally and act locally and apply that thinking to the look of the website for each geographical region. ‘It’s a continuum of how local you can be, for example they produce seasonal trend content around categories and ensure it’s locally relevant, per region,’ he says. ‘By being a global business, online is growing faster than physical stores, however with all sales now done via devices in-store and often delivered at home, the boundaries between the two are blurred,’ says Lowe.

Luxury brands have been blind to the opportunity of e-commerce, says Harriet Williams, group multi-channel director of JAB Luxury, who came on board just as L2, the New York based digital research unit, ranked one of the group’s key brands (Bally) as ‘digitally challenged’ in 2013.

‘From a brand point of view, the most important initial consumer interaction is a brand website. One of the most predominant behaviours is to research online then go into store to purchase. 90% of luxury brands don’t have a reserve online and collect in store service, we are learning from luxury department stores, who have been much better at integrating the digital and retail experience in-store.

‘Since 2013 we have been integrating our online and offline offers. Now customers can order online anywhere and purchases will be fulfilled from stores instead of warehouses. Now omnichannel is happening across the group’s portfolio of brands including Jimmy Choo, Belstaff and Bally.

Belstaff LFW AW15

‘Mobile is very important for us – 50% of our online traffic comes from mobile devices,’ says Williams. ‘All our brands have responsive mobile websites, this is the way people shop and the way forward. Integrating content and commerce via detailed ‘how to get the look’ and shoppable look books has also led to more engagement from email marketing, where we get 70% of traffic,’ says Williams.

JAB Luxury is also pursuing a virtual retail approach to the digital shopping experience. ‘Customers can use Google Maps to shop our stores virtually. For example at Jimmy Choo’s bridal boutique, or Bally’s made to order and monogramming services,’ says Williams. ‘By launching with a minimal viable product we can get speed to market and create an experience from the technology, online is more than just about driving the conversion rates.’

Jimmy Choo virtual showroom in association with Avenue Imperial

Real time social feeds

Twitter’s real-time experience is turning into a live one, courtesy of new app Periscope. ‘Now Periscope is changing the landscape,’ says David Wilding, Twitter’s head of planning. ‘It’s a broadcast app that makes whatever you are doing live to all your followers. It has huge potential for fashion weeks or events.’ He gives the example of Davina McCall (TV presenter) giving a live red carpet commentary on Periscope for the BAFTA TV awards earlier this year. ‘Think about how fashion brands can include fans into content – now possible live and immediately on Periscope,’ says Wilding.

Burberry’s Los Angeles show, broadcast live on Periscope

Early adopting brands have jumped onto Periscope to experiment with content for followers. For example, Urban Outfitters has broadcast live bands in-store via Periscope feeds and social media influencers including Tom Green and Eliza Licht have taken to promoting their respective latest film/book with live Q&As. Burberry was the first fashion brand to live stream a show on the platform, when it travelled to Los Angeles for its recent womenswear show.

According to the same research, 56% of users say Twitter gives them access to influencers, while 47% of fashion and beauty fans buy from their favourite brands through Twitter.

YouTube can be a useful brand activation social tool where followers of the platform’s growing roster of beauty, fashion, fitness, food and DIY personalities are driving sales. ‘Video influences purchase in real time,’ says Katie Jenkins, industry manager, fashion, luxury and beauty, who adds one in three users say they’ve bought something from a how to video.

‘It’s a very competitive landscape with key fashion and beauty influencers including Zoella, Pixie Woo and Tanja Burr dictating new consumer behaviours. Brands can learn their language and see new selling techniques via regular video updates. Fashion and beauty fans want their questions answered, they want authenticity and they want real life role models – they get all these things on YouTube.

The Net Set by Net-a-Porter

Net-a-Porter’s new social shopping app, The NetSet is a democratic approach to luxury, mixing a highly engaged social community of global fashionistas with user generated trends and visual search data. ‘Everyone can have a social shopping experience on the NetSet,’ says Sarah Watson, Net-a-Porter’s VP social commerce. ‘The more you contribute to the platform, the more you get out of it, it’s a pyramid approach, we want people to talk about all the content they are creating and to foster new connections. We’re not looking for mass, this is niche commerce, our KPIs are based around engagement, we hope it will inspire people to find new fashion inspiration and shop via the app.’

* An edited version of this report first appeared on LS:N Global (sub required).

Fashion industry chiefs, creatives and media socialites gathered earlier this month for the inaugural WGSN Creative Futures event, held in London over two-days to join the dots between creativity and commerce. Key themes included: phygital media, retail disruption, real-time social feeds and the important of experience by design. Here are my top six takeaways.

1. Entertainment is the new retail

Storytelling has become a key component of the Kate Spade brand equity. ‘Walking into a Kate Spade store is an experience,’ says Kristen Naiman, VP brand creative for the brand. ‘In comparison to shopping online you have to bring your brand to life as a living, breathing brand experience,’ she says.

But, the act of storytelling has to be holistic and true to the brand. ‘There’s been a shift in storytelling – moving away from just heritage to being more cohesive, bringing conversations to both on and offline,’ says Naiman. Now the customer has become a character in the story and she’s had a surge of autonomy. ‘It’s about telling the story in a universal way, so that people can relate to it and see themselves as that heroine. The true value of digital means now people can identify with a brand vision,’ says Naiman.

Kate Spade has taken on humour with its series of films featuring Anna Kendrick. ‘They tell the story of our brand with the central character as a mad cap heroine; women like Carrie Bradshaw, who came to NYC to find themselves,’ says Naiman.

Core customer service is at the heart of the brand experience in-store, says Lou Ashton, head of digital for Topshop. ‘There’s always a base level of brand experience to the customer when they visit our stores – the UX (user experience) is a high priority,’ says Ashton. For Topshop’s partnership with virtual reality specialists Inition during LFW in Feb 2014, the show was very much how we approach digital, says Ashton. ‘The Oculus Rift partnership showed how much we want to democratize fashion week for our audience. Virtual reality (VR) does have a place in retail, as an idea to start off something magical. We want to go to that crazy place, and work backwards to see if it can be sustained in the store,’ she says.

VR is likely to have a place in the store of the future. ‘We’re thinking about how that virtual shopping world could work in our locations. We like to be first with tech, experiment with it, and then make it more relevant commercially.

Tank magazine’s publisher Caroline Issa unpacked how the magazine world is turning phygital. Her mobile scanning app, Fashion Scan brings content on print pages to life with added layers of content, video and interviews. ‘ I want to integrate the physical and digital worlds of fashion magazines in the way oil mixes with ink – we live in an age of melting boundaries,’ she says.

After launching Tank 10 years ago, Issa launched the seasonal Because Magazine three years ago in conjunction with the Fashion Scan app as an experiment. ‘It’s like a pop-up book for grown ups where fashion shoots and ads are digitally enabled and content plays on your device,’ she says. The fashion app scans and recognizes current ads and acts as a diving board for the user to view further video content for each luxury or designer campaign. ‘Video and still campaigns can act in harmony together,’ she adds.

The luxury industry was slow to react to digital progress, especially in the traditionally print advertising medium. ‘It took grass roots momentum such as street style photography and blogs such as The Sartorialist or Tommy Ton, to up the scale of interactive content across magazines and their growing online platforms,’ says Issa. Mobile is the dominant platform now. ‘According to a 2014 KPCB report, video sharing on mobile devices is up 22% year on year and over the last 10 years, mobile and tablet sales have far outstripped desktops. I am in no doubt, the future of digital is mobile,’ she says.

Augmented reality, especially in advertising, hasn’t had a great response yet, it can be too gimmicky, says Issa. But it can work well as an extra layer of editorial. She cites a recent collaboration with Lush Kitchen as a good example of how layered, augmented content can provide a great boost to the storytelling behind a campaign. ‘Fashion Scan allows multiple touch points of content from each page. We have analytics to prove spikes in engagement and clicks that lead to sales online when specific products are mentioned. Our readers return to pages to scan content again and again up to six weeks after their first scan – prolonging the shelf life of the magazine and the ads inside,’ she explains.

Jefferson Hack, co-founder Another Magazine was the first publisher to produce a full LCD screen cover on a magazine. Explaining how he did it, along side the ‘go-to man of Silicon Valley’ Liam Casey of PCH, Hack says he almost gave up after nine months of research and just before he met Casey. The story of the cover video is that it has to be short agree Hack and Casey. ‘Readers have short attention spans, so you have to hold onto that aha moment, you don’t deviate too far from the immediacy of capturing someone’s attention. Rhianna made this work, she’s not just a cover model, she’s a performer, she can move and capture your attention,’ says Hack.

‘There is a prototyping renaissance happening in tech hardware right now. This type of interactive magazine opens doors for publishers to experiment with commerce, exploding the limitations of print and digital,’ says Hack, who adds he’s now looking at R&D in screen tech, ‘thinner and flexible screens are the way forward.’

3. Content to commerce is driving a new circular online retail landscape.

Amazon is a cold company when it comes to customer service. That’s the internal, accepted view according to Stephen Uren, creative director Europe. ‘Customers don’t mind that Amazon is quite a cold company, we’re not warm the way we talk to people, the UX is not great,’ he says. Now Amazon wants to understand who its customers are, in much more depth. ‘We are getting more editorial all the time. We want to talk to our customers. You can’t just be about product all the time,’ he says. ‘We are always looking at how consumer attitudes to shopping online are changing – they are evolving and becoming much more discerning.

Amazon wants to change from being a high-convenience brand to a high-fidelity shopping brand according to Uren. There are certain artisanal products on Amazon Fashion that have not surfaced yet, he says. ‘We don’t have the right tools to show them. It needs to be a much more curated and tailored shopping experience than it is now,’ he adds.

There’s a huge amount of convergence between publishing, e-tailing and retailing says Melissa Dick, new content director at Conde Nast e-commerce and past editorial director at ASOS. ‘It’s easier for retailers to produce content that it is for publishers to become retailers,’ she says. For Stylebop it was easier to invest in content than not. ‘Its less harmful to the brand, if it doesn’t work you can just start again, you can’t say that about holding stock or investing in merchandise,’ says fashion director, Leila Yavari.

Publishers have a responsibility to produce insightful content to capture the reader’s imagination. ‘The role of publisher is to understand your customer and to give them the confidence they need, through whatever content vertical you have available,’ says Dick. ‘That’s the same role for a retailer, understanding their customers’ needs and what they might want to consume next season.’ Yavari defines Stylebop’s editorial content strategy around the seasonal buy. ‘We need to create a message that is a luxury aspirational environment. If you don’t’ have a store then you can create the brand personality through the content.’

The brands that communicate well with their audience will be the content successes of the future, ‘the minute you slap a conversion table on your editorial team will be the minute you fail,’ says Dick. ‘Magazines have started with integrity – many editors are brand ambassadors or influencers now too – so retail brands need to have a similar approach, it’s the same principal,’ agrees Yavari.

Every publisher needs to think about new revenue streams in today’s crowded marketplace. ‘It might be entertainment, it might be experience,’ says Dick. ‘Publishers are looking into experiential platforms, they have amazing brands (eg Vogue Festival). Partnerships of publishers and brands will grow, we will start to see more hybrid platforms,’ she says.

4. Real-time social feeds win the connected consumer’s scroll time

Twitter’s real-time feeds and access to insiders are driving engagement, especially around key fashion events, according to the social platform’s sales lead, Georgina Parnell. ‘We’ve seen huge growth in the way people consume fashion content on Twitter around fashion weeks and events such as the Met Gala. Dedicated hashtags such as #LFW or #MetGala drive conversations. Brands have opportunities from all that passion bubbling,’ she says.

With 54m ‘I want, I need’ tweets per month – there is automatic activation around purchases. According to Twitter’s own research, users are 3.2 times more likely to feel up to date for fashion events. Twitter is real time and consumers love that behind the scenes perspective, says Parnell. She cites recent examples as the detailed multi-photo images from backstage at Matthew Williamson’s show or Burberry’s exclusive #Tweetcam content in real time from its LFW show, when the brand’s exclusive filters for personalized tweets felt very special for the users who participated.

Again during LFW, Topshop partnered with Twitter for a focus on real-time retail trends. When Topshop took live Twitter data from the dedicated #LiveTrends hashtag it monitored key trends such as floral/stripes/70s to link back to product available online and in-store. The results were immediately showcased in stores, where merchandise changed hourly and across all Topshop’s social feeds. There was a 34% increase in sales over the four day LFW period.

During the recent BAFTAs, sponsored posts by House of Fraser led to shoppable tweets for products online that had sold out by the Monday. ‘This closed loop campaign ensured everyone was on the same journey,’ says Parnell.

Twitter’s real-time experience is turning into a live one. ‘Now Periscope is changing the landscape,’ says Parnell. ‘It’s a broadcast app that makes whatever you are doing live to all your users. It has huge potential for fashion weeks.’ She gives the example of Davina McCall (TV presenter) giving a live red carpet commentary on Periscope for the Baftas. ‘Think about how fashion brands can include fans into content – now possible live and immediately on Periscope,’ says Parnell.

Early adopting brands have jumped onto Periscope to experiment with content for followers. For example, Urban Outfitters has broadcast live bands in-store via Periscope feeds and social media influencers including Tom Green and Eliza Licht have taken to promoting their respective latest film/book with live Q&As.

According to the same research, 56% of users say Twitter gives them access to influencers, while 47% of fashion and beauty fans buy from their favourite brands through Twitter.

Everyone has an app in them, but being the first British app to be included on the Apple Watch is an innovative move and something Justin Cooke, founder of music app Tunepics, is used to. Describing his music and pictures app, Cooke says ‘Instagram freed the photo, we want to free music.’ He says the Apple Watch association is a sign of how far Tunepics has come in just over a year, adding it will probably grow through gifting and personalized messages on the Apple device. ‘A social network is only 10% of where we want to be. We have to learn how to evolve the product – we have 2m live uses now, our aim is to connect the world through emotion plus music,’ he says.

Taking a wide view at how brands should communicate with tomorrow’s connected consumer, Jonathan Chippendale, CEO of retail technology specialist Holition says disruption is manifest. ‘Digital has disrupted the retail space beyond recognition, you can’t ignore it as the future,’ he says.

‘Lots of tech is easy to use but it fails to deliver on experience, especially if the retailer doesn’t understand what the engagement value is in the first place,’ he says, adding that so much of it lacks the cool factor in-store, because it’s usually built by technologists rather than people who understand consumer behavior.

‘We finally got rid of QR codes, now my bête noir is just screens. I want to banish them from stores. People already have a screen in their hand they don’t need another one when they look up,’ he says. But there are creative ways of using screens when they provide relevant entertainment, he counters, citing Holition’s visualizing data project in 2014 for Lyst. ‘We provided the God’s eye view, updating Lyst’s data in real time, showing the trends coming straight out of 30,000 purchases per second. We intercepted these pieces of data on their journey around the Lyst network and re-packaged it to provide a visual story.’

The beauty industry has found success with magic mirrors, first the L’Oreal app and now Holition’s own Face app, currently being promoted in conjuction with London College of Fashion and the Savage Beauty Alexander McQueen exhibition. Chippendale says this example personifies Holition’s approach to mixing analogue with digital, to engaging consumer in more personal ways and to move towards a more sensorial technology experience.

Best practice retail has always been about experience. ‘As retailers we walk our customers through five key stages on the journey to purchase,’ explains Guy Smith, head of design for Arcadia.

‘Firstly it’s about an introduction to the brand values; then it’s helping them to browse the store with textured, layered content to help them feel part of the brand; next is the validation stage, that moment when they’re thinking about buying something and you have to create a deep connection; then it’s securing payment, which is where things are changing the most and we are heading towards a mobile first purchase environment. This stage needs to be re-configured, where the current static (tills) model is disrupted and payment is merged with the fitting room experience; lastly it’s the sharing stage, when retailers need to encourage customers to share their experience with friends and the cycle begins again with someone new,’ he explains. He says there is much dispruption in the market and sometimes experimentation is difficult to guage in terms of ROI, but ultimately retailers need to make all of this seamless.

Experience design has to be about fun, says Smith. ‘Shopping is still a major pastime for consumers. Service design (with or without technology) is an integral part of experience design. The right kind of advice is key. It’s the validation part, so capitalize on people and personal service. Experiential design is critical – every time someone meets the brand it has to be perfect, anything less and the brand loyalty is gone.

‘True luxury is still centred on a personal in-store experience,’ says Patrick Grant, creative director of Norton & Sons of Savile Row. ‘The fashion world is increasingly in the business of giving people a total experience that connects them, physically, to luxury,’ he adds. Money buys the opportunity to experience genuine luxury and where human interaction and face to face engagement is required – flying in the face of ‘ubiquitous technology’ according to Grant who is in talks with Vertu to turn communicating via smartphone into a personalized, human experience.

6. Co-collaborators share partnership lessons

Balmain for H&M

Who better to talk about the benefits of designer collaborations than H&M? ‘Our collaborations have a huge effect on the designers now, after 10 years, it puts them on the global map, says H&M’sglobal creative director Donald Schenider. ‘The result is that it’s changed the way people integrate with H&M. It has become acceptable to mix high and low fashion,’ he says.

The relationship between designer and H&M has to be organic, says Schenider, adding it’s a lot of teamwork and a well-oiled machine. ‘Ultimately H&M just wants to be a designer brand for the few hours each collection is in store – the idea is that it flies out quickly,’ he says. While most designers are usually nervous at first, they soon realize the scale of the collaboration. ‘We spend more money in a week than they would all year – and it will change their life.’ (It’s a shame Schenider didn’t spill the beans about the new Balmain collaboration, he was speaking just a week before the announcement!)

One of the fashion industry’s more surprising collaborations is Ekocylce, and the brand’s creative director Adam Derry talked about how the three way partnership between Will.i.am, Harrods and Coke has launched onto the fashion landscape with one agenda: to create innovation in sustainability through design.

‘We believe by leading through design it will be an epiphany moment,’ says Derry. ‘With Coke’s investment in providing post-consumer waste as a base cloth and Will.i.am’s commitment to redefining what sustainable design can look like, it’s up to us as consumers to affect change,’ he says.

The fashion industry needs to redefine waste and recyclable materials for the future. Derry says Ekocyle sees waste as a commodity and a new gold, where the brand plays to its collaborative brand strengths. ‘I love collaboration when its clearly defined, says Derry. ‘We have 130 products at Harrods – that’s a lot of noise about sustainability and design input from three power houses: Will.i.am, Harrods and Coke.’ Derry’s definition of sustainability today is a bulletproof trust record for the manufacturing journey – all practices around sustainability have to be 100% transparent to do it properly.

A convenience store with a suite of digital services such as click & collect, RFID and mobile payments, could be on the cards from Amazon, according to Re-Code.

With the launch of Periscope by Twitter, real-time social feeds just got a whole lot more interesting for the fashion and retail industries, that are currently gearing up for digital activity around fashion week season, says Decoded Fashion.

Tinder-commerce, integrated media campaigns and Retail Lab style phygital spaces were just some of the buzz themes at SXSW this year. Fashion&Mash and JWTIntelligence have some interesting conference takeouts.

UK retail sales are buoyant as high street sales surge, reports the FT.

Fashion month has kicked off and already the digerati style-set are hot on the heels of the latest ‘influencers’ and their preferred social media platforms. As fashion designers, media publishers, retailers and luxury brands all assess their ROI across social media spend, it’s influencer clicks and double-screening activities that are driving digital trends this season.

Pin and click

Apple is jumping on the ‘pinfluencer’ band-wagon, with a collaboration for its App Store on Pinterest that launched during NYFW.

Apple’s App store on Pinterest, launched for NYFW

As Pinterest develops more Rich Pins, or pins that are instantly actionable like real-time pricing or store addresses, the appeal of immediate, one-click access is hard to ignore, especially considering Pinterest’s huge fashion following (ComScore has it at 70m visits per month according to WWD, with more than 5m fashion pins going live every day). So the App Store collaboration allows users to discover new iOS apps and install them without leaving Pinterest.

So far we’ve seen tastemaker pinning activity such as FarFetch Discover, ASAP54, Lyst, Spring and Snapchat all uploading dedicated content from NYFW and influencers such as Cara Delevigne and Olivia Palermo will be sharing their favourite apps for the duration of London, Milan and Paris fashion weeks. Photography and visual culture is also on the App Store’s content agenda, via pinning activity from iPhone photographers Katja and Mal Sherlock as well as designer Valentina Kova and visual storytelling app Steller.

* Apple’s Pinterest collaboration shows the strength of the visual-culture platform and the power of pinners as influencers. The one-click download mentality is indicative of Millennial behaviour and looks set to drive digital strategy across other social media platforms.

London’s double-screening focus

The triumvirate of London Fashion Week digital innovators: Burberry, Topshop and Hunter Original, all chose to focus their #LFW social activity on the captivating appeal of live-streaming their show, combined with live messaging app collaborations.

Topshop again took a democratic approach to sharing its Unique fashion show live online, and on six outdoor advertising poster sites across the UK at high-traffic locations such as London’s Westfield shopping centres.

Topshop Unique’s live stream show outdoor posters at LFW

Topshop partnered with Ocean Outdoor and Twitter for the live-stream show, during which online followers could shop for key trends by tweeting trended hashtags eg #military or #monochrome as the new AW15 collection was shown on the runway. Topshop’s e-commerce team had curated an offer of related merchandise looks ahead of utilising real-time data accrued from the @Topshop #livetrends dedicated show tweets. I tried it with a #70s tag, and alongside other live tweeters, we all received a link back, detailing 70s and floral looks that were instantly shoppable.

“Through Twitter’s listening power, we are allowing our global consumer to shop the trends as and when they happen, and give them insight and access into runway shows,” says Sheena Sauvaire, Topshop’s global marketing director. “The idea of live advertising is just beginning and this will be a first example of real-time shoppable billboards,” she adds.

Hunter Original did something similar, also via live-streaming its show on nine of Ocean Outdoor’s digital screens across the UK as well as it’s own website and social channels. It promoted real time m-commerce for key runway looks, by allowing viewers of the interactive screens free wifi in the busy shopping or transit locations and driving traffic to the Hunter Original mobile site to shop similar looks such as the Original Parka. The catwalk set featured an elevated scaffold runway, built above a pool of water and miniature waterfall. The sound of running water was intended as a nod to the Scottish highlands in an urban setting – reflecting the brand’s new metropolitan meets rural design DNA by creative director Alasdhair Willis. It was a subtle synaesthetic selling approach, giving a live experience an extra dimension.

* For both these digital campaigns, I like the idea that as consumers take to double-screening they are also double-seasoning – with one foot in next season’s trends, while simultaneously shopping current season looks.

Message me back

Burberry took a two-fold digital approach this LFW, ensuring its live-streamed show experience was interactive for its global audiences across multiple social media channels. Firstly Burberry took its Asia audience on a emoji fun filled journey to Europe, via a collaboration with messaging app Line. The luxury brand live-streamed its show on the network, reaching out to Line’s 170m monthly active users, mostly across Japan, Thailand and Indonesia. Line users sign up to the service for its emoji characters such as Brown the bear and Cony the rabbit, who this season, were treated to a sightseeing trip to London courtesy of Burberry. During their visit Brown and Cony watch the Burberry show alongside ‘new’ cartoon characters Cara Delevigne, Christopher Bailey, Mario Testino and Anna Wintour.

Secondly, Burberry again partnered with Twitter for a live-stream show experiment. When online fans used the hashtag #Tweetcam to the @Burberry account, they received tweet back showing a time-stamped photo from the runway, shot at the exact time the tweet was sent and carrying the user’s personal Twitter handle.

Burberry for Line messaging app at LFW AW15

Burberry AW15 Tweet Cam @Retail_Planner

I like the Line collaboration for its fun, storytelling journey that targeted Burberry’s core Asia market, as well as drive traffic to its own website’s Shop the Runway seasonal activity. Meanwhile the Twitter partnership is a highly personalised form of brand engagement, with all the emotion of a direct brand to consumer conversation.

Influencer-commerce

Instagram is driving the trend for discovery-commerce, especially for fashion brands utilising the innovative Liketoknow.it shopping app from RewardStyle. So it was just a matter of time before the two platforms collaborated with a designer brand to shop influencers’ key Insta looks live from the runway – step in Preen by Thornton Bregazzi and a handful of fashion bloggers to make it a first for LFW (after BCBG Max Azria did it in September 2014 for NYFW).

Preen by Thornton Bregazzi for Liketoknow.it Instagram

Preen by Thornton Bragazzi x Liketoknow.it at LFW

With its Liketoknow.it x Preen by Thornton Bregazzi partnership, Instagram is staking its claim to discovery-commerce at live runway shows. This is just the beginning, and as a digital and technology board member for the The British Fashion Council, Instagram’s Tracy Yaverbaun is likely to add a few more brands to the LFW ‘like to shop’ roster for next season.

As I explored in a post for DisneyRollerGirl late last year, discovery-commerce is also firmly on the agenda for ShopStyle and Amex. On their collaborative shopping platform, The Style Inspiration Hub, content is currently focused on fashion week themed posts for all four major fashion week destinations. If you missed DisneyRollerGirl’s pre-LFW insider tips post, read (and shop) it here.

This e-commerce/discovery platform is a collaboration that works well for both parties, and Amex is making the most of its influencer-driven association that mirrors its concierge service, the Amex Insiders, during LFW. There’s nothing like having a PA type service on tap between shows to sort out taxis, restaurant reservations and even IT support. The Amex Insiders team say they’ve dealt with a record number of nearly 3500 requests over the last five days, with popular restaurant requests ranging from the luxury fashion house themed afternoon teas at The Mandarin Oriental or hot new restaurant The Old Tom & English for its tapas-style take on quintessential British dishes.

* This is an updated version of a story that first appeared on DisneyRollerGirl.

High street retailers are utilising their seasonal press days for much more than just previewing new collections, now these events are a tool for crowdsourcing key trends both on- and offline.

Arcadia SS15 press day

Major brands such as ASOS, H&M and New Look are employing social media personalisation tactics to entice fashion editors and bloggers down to their press days for editorial commentary, exclusive imagery and influencer-driven content, that in itself is driving brand followers. Here’s a top 10 run down of who had the best social campaigns and activity at the spring/summer 15 press days:

ASOS – obviously ASOS is going to have the most sophisticated digital attraction at its press day, it lives online! Visitors to the 1/1 walk-in digital colour projection and print installation could create their own design (via a series of questions about moods and button pressing) for a personalized poster or t-shirt to take-away. ASOS also profiled its new social-influencers personal shopping service with a series of screens showing YouTube clips, introducing its team of dedicated stylists and their Instagram handles.

H&M – one of my favourite press day attractions (organised by Reverb Events), H&M had everyone channeling their childhood paper-doll dressing activities with pre-cut outfit stickers that could be stuck to photos taken in the pop-up studio. To promote the retailer’s premium Studio capsule range there was a photo-studio and ‘craft’ table to showcase editor’s key picks and finished doll images that were instantly Instagrammable.

H&M SS15 Studio press day #PaperDolls

Kurt Geiger – ‘You had me at Aloha’ was the give-away theme of Kurt Geiger’s evening press event held in Portobello’s Electric Cinema that was part Hawaiian themed festival and part press day. As if the chance to win a trip to Hawaii wasn’t enough pull, there was a grass-skirted Hawaiian band performance, surfer dudes, cocktails in coconuts and blow-up parrots as props for the all important Instagrammed shoes that had pride of place on the sumptuous seating.

Kurt Geiger SS15 #YouHadMeatAloha

Boden – Boden takes the prize for the best VM displays where the springtime message ‘Great Boden in Bloom’, combined with a gardening theme provided the inspiration for colourful creative visual merchandising from carrots to clutches – all housed in a neon pop-up botanical shed.

Boden SS15 press day ‘Boden in Bloom’

New Look – New Look’s press day was merchandised by trend drops and with phy-gital display screens such as ‘Magical Marrakesh’ to advertise each story, the layout was a lesson in editorializing the store floor. With a heavy focus on social media activities, the event featured a photo-booth and beach themed speech bubble placards as well as a ‘postcards from the edge’ story-board highlighting editor’s favourite pieces.

New Look SS15 press day

New Look SS15 press day

Warehouse – via its Tales of the City blog, Warehouse was able to translate an urban online voice onto its physical press day presentation. There were Tales of the City trended rooms, look book imagery and a set of wardrobes that included interior screens playing videos on repeat of the clothes on the rails. The entire VM set will feature in varying degrees in stores and the dedicated video content hi-tech wardrobes will feature in flagship window schemes.

Warehouse SS15 press day #TalesoftheCity

Warehouse SS15 press day #TalesoftheCity

Primark – the cavernous ex-car-park venue meant a huge setting for Primark’s press day – including a vote for duvet set prints station in the homewares area, and a mirrored beauty counter for the new cosmetics range (Poundland watch out) – not to mention footwear wall and trended womens, men’s and teen vignettes. The giant transparent look book images hanging from the ceiling added scale and drama to the setting while the floral selfie-station was a fun execution for a de-rigeur press day activity.

Primark SS15 press day

Primark SS15 beauty press day

Primark SS15 press day

Hobbs – Personalisation and creativity were the driving forces behind Hobbs’ approach to content sharing for its town-house setting press day. As editors snapped and posted their key pieces on Instagram, Hobbs mirrored the visual coverage with a growing collection of Polaroid snaps on a dedicated wall – documenting the most popular merchandise choices throughout the day. How can this be replicated in-store / online?

Hobbs SS15 press day

Hobbs SS15 press day

Oasis – a charming walled garden (and café) was the well-manicured setting for Oasis’ press day complete with water fountain feature, stone pathway and named statues for key outfits. There was even a seedling and gift shop for press day trinkets. A well thought out theme from beginning to end.

Oasis SS15 press day

Oasis SS15 press day

Oasis SS15 press day

Arcadia – It was a full on botanical experience at this secret garden decorated venue, including hidden café and tropical photo-booth for OOTD shoots. Each of Arcadia’s brands had themed tableaux settings ideal for Instagramming key collection pieces. Over the two day event, press waxed lyrical about the Wonderland Events designed setting. My favourite was the free cactus station and the garden-party style café.

Topshop SS15 press day

Dorothy Perkins SS15 press day

Insta-ready

For many, the visual merchandising creativity of tableaux style settings is too hard to ignore. Today’s press days are one big photo opportunity and there were plenty of Instagram-friendly displays on offer at Boden, Kurt Geiger and Arcadia.

Miss Selfridge SS15 press day

Storyboard storytelling

Pinterest-inspired image boards were also great Instagram-bait for retailers encouraging editors and bloggers to post their favourite pieces and start a conversation – both with physical Polaroids (at Hobbs), postcards (at New Look) and storytelling imagery (at Monsoon) as well as mashed up cut-out-and-stick digital iterations of editorial favourites (at H&M).

Monsoon SS15 press day

Shoe-fies

Special mention goes to the shoe-fie stations at Kurt Geiger and Dune, where dedicated image boards (complete with bare-chested surfer hunk at Kurt Geiger) ensured many of the visiting editors posted shoe-fies online.

Dune SS15 press day

Crowdsourcing product ranges

It was the piled up markers at Primark’s press day that got me thinking about how best to utilise all these early collection product reviews. Primark certainly had the volume of editor tags to make a difference to what products go into production and what might get cut, while Gap’s editor comment labels added influencer-style endorsements to products that look set to be popular.

Primark SS15 press day, tagging key pieces

What does it all mean?

Social media democratizes the previously exclusive experience of press days and previewing fashion collections up to three months in advance. Now consumers can see what’s coming up, they can get a head-start on key seasonal trends and ear mark products they want to buy. Personalization could be a major driver for ensuring retailers order the products their customers (and press) vote for after press days.

Perhaps retailers could start to introduce pop-ups in-store and online, for sneak peaks at next month’s merchandise drops. (Spoiler alert: Warehouse is already on it with its Tales of the City press day blog post and Oasis has a similar sneaky peak press day themed post here)

Consumers could start voting for what products they like (and don’t) via apps such as Whichit, that looks and feels like Instagram but gamifies the shopping experience, by asking users to vote for their favourite outfits. This data could easily be transferred into a forward planning tool, that tracks products with the most votes.

A good pop-up still has its place and this one blends a few retail trends at once. For its launch onto the ‘premium high-street’, last week online fashion site Finery London opened a week-long pop-up showroom that mixed physical creativity with digital experimentalism.

Visitors to the tiny Greek Street store could see the label’s resort collection shown on a revolving carousel, set against a backdrop displaying the creative process behind the Finery London team’s design process, eg sketches, patterns, branding ideas. From the street, visitors could swipe through an interactive look book and find a discount code (for early bird shopping) hidden on a screen in the window using motion-sensing technology connected to their devices.

Finery London pop-up store

‘Creating an online audience can start just as effectively with an experience in the physical world, and for an online-only fashion brand like Finery London, we wanted to make the product tangible, visible and highly desirable to Londoners,’ says Thea Frost, partner at Somewhat, the digital agency responsible for the digital concept. ‘The interactive screen mechanic reminds visitors that Finery is a digital brand and allows them to browse as they would on the website,’ she adds.

After trialing the site among early adopters in December, Finery London launches properly on February 5th. With a team comprising of Caren Downie, ex-fashion director at ASOS, Rachel Morgan, former head womenswear buyer also at ASOS and Emma Farrow, until recently Topshop’s design director, the brand’s fashion-forward ethos is well considered. Farrow says Finery London has launched as an antidote to the current lack of femininity elsewhere on the high-street. ‘It’s about flattering the female form,’ she says adding the brand has a London feel but is ‘a little bit quirky and not too serious,’ according to a report on the Business of Fashion.

* This pop-up reflects the retail trend for interactive billboards, that is breathing new life into the pop-up genre. Finery London’s launch onto the market is a clever mix of creative storytelling and digital experimentalism. Showrooming retail tactics blend a physical presence with digital discovery- commerce. By encouraging early adopter shopping on the site through simple rewards, the campaign is a great example of how to utilise social-commerce from the word go.

As London Fashion Week kicks off, London’s retail scene doesn’t disappoint – check out a host of new physical meets digital store happenings from East to West.

Topshop Oxford Circus & the #LFW Instagram window

Coinciding with its LFW Unique runway show on 14 September, Topshop is launching its most democratic, ‘socially accessible’ fashion show to date. Not least as the results will be seen live and direct in a specially commissioned ‘digital mosaic’ window installation at the Oxford Circus store, created by one of my favourite creative duos Hellicar & Lewis.

Topshop’s social curation interactive window for SS15

Via partnerships with Facebook and Instagram, this phygital window display will livestream social content from the LFW Topshop show space in Kings Cross to passersby and online followers of the hashtag #topshopwindow.

Five popular Instagrammers as well as show-goers snapping streetstyle or selfies will be feeding into the window’s pixelated content, that can also be manipulated by waving or gesturing in front of the window at the Oxford Circus store.

Ever the democratizer, Topshop is fuelling the rise of social-commerce at LFW. Adding an interactive element to its themed window display is inclusive and blurs the lines between physical and online even further.

Happy birthday to DSM!

Dover Street Market celebrates 10 years of avant-garde designer creativity this month, and with it comes a brand new social media strategy. After a decade of curating and experimenting with fashion’s great, bold and new, the original luxury department store has launched a visual-language focused Instagram account to tie in with its big anniversary campaign for AW14. It’s a significant digital move for the social media shy retail brand that now operates stores in London, New York and Tokyo. The Insta posts are guest edited this month by Another magazine’s digital editor Laura Bradley and champion a continuous creative aesthetic that offers followers one eye on the physical store and one on the overall creative vision. The perfect hybrid of past and future, summed up by the new hashtag: #TheNextTenYears.

Dover Street Market, London 10th anniversary facade

The physical celebrations in-store are worth a visit too. I love the pop-up market stalls, selling DSM branded trinkets and collectibles that are dotted throughout the five floors. Highlights of this season’s Tachiagari seasonal updates include new concepts by Simone Rocha, Loewe, JW Anderson, Sacai and a new Nike Lab with exclusive kicks. There’s the first overseas outpost for the CDG Good Design Shop, full of utilitarian homewares and vintage collection classics from the Comme archive. Louis Vuitton and DSM collaborated on the luxury brand’s first ephemeral boutique (new word for pop-up?) to showcase Nicholas Ghesquiere’s first collection for the house.

Thankfully founders Rei Kawakubo and husband Adrian Joffe have addressed the age-old problem of what to do about changing rooms with some truly amazing collaborations. There are giant walk-in ‘drop-boxes’ designed by Peter Blake, SC Artroom Milan and Christian Astuguevieille, who’s Waterfall box is covered in large white and yellow rope tassels for pure decadence.

It’s interesting to see how the worlds of fashion and art continue to collide at DSM (London’s Frieze art fair is the store’s highest grossing sales period), now with the added global influence that social media brings to the equation.

The World of Rick Owens at Selfridges

Another celebratory collaboration in London comes from US designer, Rick Owens, who is currently visualized in giant torso form above Selfridges iconic entrance. You can’t miss the 25m statue complete with flame-lit torch, created by Doug Jennings and installed to mark Owens’ 20th anniversary as a designer.

The department store has launched The World of Rick Owens in its WonderRoom concept space on the ground floor and associated Orchard Street windows. The space is a fetishistic ode to Owens, that has more of an exhibition mood than simply retail. There is a pulsating LED screen on one wall – an installation by Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda – that combines light and audio frequency for an immersive experience. There are also books, films and music curated by the designer on display, alongside the 20-piece collection that has an ‘elemental’ theme according to the designer.

But it’s the tech-infused, thematic windows that I love in particular. The corner window includes two flat screens projecting the Rick Owens brand name in flames, set against a black staircase where fog is pumped out towards the top, for an eerie and sinister feel.

Owen’s other windows take inspiration from the 1923 silent movie of Richard Strauss’s opera Salome. One features a model, Terry Ann as Salome with back-lit slits for eyes and a steady stream of black ink pouring from her mouth, while scenes from the film are played across her forehead. Nextdoor is a picture of another character from the film, Edouard as Jokanaan, whose head will end on a silver platter for the ever demanding Salome. The windows are a reference to the new Everyman Cinema that Selfridges has just launched and where Salome will be playing later on this month.

Rick Owens, Master of the Elements, is one of twelve iconic designers contributing exclusive designs as part of the store’s major AW14 marketing campaign, The Masters. I love the other-wordly and specially commissioned film by Marie Schuller for SHOWStudio, that comprises a collection of vignettes that portray the different designers’ universes, yet are visually connected. Watch it here: SHOWstudio X Selfridges – The Masters by Marie Schuller.

Jean-Paul Gaultier is another designer celebrated in The Masters line-up at Selfridges. An elaborate Selfie Station created by retail set-designer Gary Card is billed as a digital experience for customers who wish to share the JPG space-age theme for his Master of Expression collaboration. The NASA-inspired station features a moon-buggy that projects images of visitors to multiple screens that are instantly sharable on social media.

JPG selfie station at Selfridges

As physical retail becomes more fleetingly experiential, brands are looking to inspiring and innovative interactive solutions to entice customers in. These Selfridges Masters collaborations are great examples of how creativity and digital are converging in the retail space.

Shoe Heaven at Harrods

Harrods has opened London’s largest shoe department (officially swiping Selfridges’ crown) and while it’s not a digital environment, it is giant in scale and more like a huge mall full of shoes up on the fifth floor. Use the Harrods in-store navigation app to find your way around (it’s that big). There are dedicated boutiques for a host of luxury footwear names from Giuseppe Zanotti, Christian Louboutin, Charlotte Olympia and Manolo Blahnik even has an exclusive staircase to his private suite-style salon.

To help drive footfall Harrods has launched a digital campaign via a fun mobile game called Stiletto Wars (think CandyCrush meets a never ending Kurt Geiger lookbook), downloadable through the Harrods mag-tail app. Fastest footwear matchers can send their scores to a leaderboard to win prizes including gift cards and VIP shopping experiences at Harrods. The best bit is that the game will feature in a giant interactive screen in the store windows on Brompton Road until the end of September.

Harrods Stiletto Wars game

Gamified retail: a little bit of digital goes a long way.

Karl Lagerfeld’s selfie iPads

Opened earlier this year, the Karl Lagerfeld flagship on Regent Street is one of the best examples I’ve seen of digitized changing rooms. Yes, it’s a #selfie-based idea but this is where a simple execution works the best.

iPads are placed on the wall in each changing room with an image of Karl himself taking your photo. Obviously customers press the camera button. Et voila, the selfie phenomenon working hard for a brand and playing into the favourite pastime of its core millennial audience – sharing content across social media. There are screens dotted around the store to display look book images and add to the general digital feel to the store.

The iPads are not to encourage selfies, says Candice Collomb, Karl Lagerfeld’s digital manager. ‘The purpose of the iPad is to create a digital experience in the store, and encourage our customers to share their outfits and talk about their time in the store on their social networks,’ she told me. ‘There is a photo booth in the changing rooms, it’s fun and entertaining. Customers love experimenting with it, they play with the different filters and share images with their community,’ she says. One of the most popular digital elements is the guest book, where customers can message Karl and ask for advice or submit entries for ‘pic of the week’. ‘Technology plays an important role in the store. It is used to increase brand visibility on social media and helps to create a strong bond between the consumer and sales person,’ says Collomb who adds the data is stored via cloud technology and ‘heightens the feeling of being part of a ‘club’ for customers and the sales team’.

Selfie so good – not gimmicky, just useful and social.

Buzzing beacons on Regent Street

While you are on Regent Street make sure you download the dedicated shopping app that links your smartphone into the street’s new beacon system, that uses low-energy bluetooth technology for close-range connections. It can recognize when you are near a favourite shop, and send personalized promotions. Much has been said about beacons transforming the retail landscape, and if you take the time to swipe yes or no for your preferred brands (Tinder-style) then you only get push notifications for stuff you are interested in.

Regent Street is one of the first major retail destinations to launch a dedicated beacon shopping app, and with just over 100 stores to choose from it’s a great place to beta test the future of physical meets digital shopping.

Beauty-tech emporiums: Burberry, Dior & Chanel

For the full-on luxury beauty brand experience head to Covent Garden. The tourist shopping haven has become the go-to retail destination for luxury brands to open dedicated beauty emporiums – I’m talking about Chanel, Dior and Burberry, that all opened in the Plaza central area. These bijou boutiques are aspirational brand statements where Millennials flock to try out their favourite luxury brands’ latest nail, eye, cheek and lip colours – at prices they can afford.

Burberry Beauty, Covent Garden

Talking of appealing to Millennials, this trio of stores are digitized to the hilt and scream Insta-ready photo as soon as you walk in. At Burberry there are colour coordinated iPads organised as a central chandelier, while at Chanel fun gif-style animated videos play on screens above the beauty bar and at Dior it’s interactive mirrors that grab your attention as soon as you walk in.

Chanel Beauty, Covent Garden

Luxury brands are having fun with physical-digital displays instead of static VM. With beauty as their new focus, brands are enhancing the immersive shopping experience and ensuring an interactive and inclusive shopper journey.

Opening Ceremony at Ace Hotel

Only Opening Ceremony was man enough for the job of hosting a multi-brand designer store at the new Ace Hotel, Shoreditch. Tapping into the local zeitgeist and inspiring global hipsters with culturally relevant, creative products are shared brand values for both retailer and hotelier. So this partnership is an intelligent pairing, not to mention symbiotic.

Opening Ceremony at Ace Hotel, Shoreditch

The pop-up OC space is located just next door to Ace Hotel and its locally run florist, coffee shop, juice bar Hoi Polloi restaurant and collaborators’ design shop. Designed by RCA alumni Max Lamb, who took a suitably brutalist design approach to the interior and flexi fittings, there are Lamb’s signature touches of raw materials and hand-crafted design elements throughout the small space. For the hipster fashion offer, OC has chosen a handful of local London designers (currently enjoying New Gen status at LFW) – including Marques’ Almeida and Faustine Steinmetz as well as international names such as Kenzo and Maison Martin Margiela.

This is a clever collaboration that has synergy at its heart – both parties celebrate local creativity and talent.

The fashion show is dead. Long live the interactive, digital brand experience now taking place during New York and London fashion weeks, where consumers, influencers and their collective social media clout are the preferred global audience.

It’s no coincidence that several brands are using these respective (outdated) fashion week events as digital springboards to launch democratic, social-commerce driven campaigns for buy-it-now capsule collections. And for a few digital innovators without an insta-commerce agenda, the runway show has evolved beyond live-streaming, to become an interactive and highly sharable event that puts consumer participation front of mind and at the fingertips of many.

New York’s multi-media memo

In New York, over the last week we’ve seen the traditional runway show outgrow its true purpose, with a raft of designers going all out with immersive, tech-rich and experiential happenings.

With a social reach agenda as priority, Tommy Hilfiger engaged a number of non-fashion experts from the worlds of travel, architecture and photography, to document their personal reviews of his runway show, live and direct through a dedicated social campaign dubbed First Timers. The reviewers posted to their own social media platforms and the results were aggregated on a section of the brand’s website called The Conversation. Building on the brand’s democratic approach to sharing its show assets with online fans, this latest campaign adds another layer of expertise and engagement.

Polo Ralph Lauren SS15 at NYFW

Amping up the digital quotient to huge scale proportions, Ralph Lauren put on a 4D light show in New York’s Central Park, calling it a logical next step in the brand’s progressive techno-savvy marketing strategy. Utilising a four-story high water screen as the backdrop for the newly launched Polo Women runway show, virtual models walked among New York’s famous landmarks such as Brooklyn Bridge and the High Line (CGI meets hologram – so very tech!). All this digi-tainment is of course ideal Instagram-bait for the Techanista fashion crowd, who duly shared the Polo4D hashtag and show video: generously.

A more intimate, but equally mesmerisming multi-media show came from Gareth Pugh, who decamped to New York this season for a theatrical presentation in collaboration with Lexus’s Design Disrupted platform. The designer told Dazed Digital he wanted to push the boundaries of an ‘interactive presentation’. So contained within three separate, dark chambers at Pier 36, he mixed gesture-responsive video, writhing dance moves and a tornado like finale that fused folkore inspiration somewhere (lost?) between the physical and digital worlds only Pugh truly knows.

Gareth Pugh SS15 for Lexus Design Disrupted project

Wearables have quickly become the buzz of NYFW. One of the key players in this nascent fash-tech space is Rebecca Minkoff, who launched a new collection of wearables intelligent jewellery during her show. ‘We wanted to go after wearables in a different way,’ Uri Minkoff, CEO told WWD. As the brand looks at this fashion-function mix, it’s really where their customer is living, he says.

Rebecca Minkoff wearable technology notification bracelet

Less successful but still firmly in the interactive show bracket, was Minkoff’s experiment with a capsule range of dresses using bio-tech fabrics, highlighted on the runway by the use of 3D glasses.

Rebecca Minkoff SS15

One noteable exception to the exponential growth of digital fashion week presentations this season, is Opening Ceremony. The OC designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim took a digital detox approach this season and chose what the LA Times referred to as a ‘playsentation’ called 100% Lost Cotton – a play re-enacting the life of a fashion show co-written by Jonah Hill and Spike Jonze.

Opening Ceremony SS15 ‘playsentation’ during NYFW

The 45 min play was in fact a parady of a fashion show (from first casting sessions to closing runway), that explored contributing relationships and the highs and lows involved in creating one. Smartphones and cameras were banned and in the suitably theatrical surroundings of the Metropolitan Opera House, the cast (including Elle Fanning as well as models to actually present the collection) walked and talked their way through a script that the designers say was inspired by their carefree, youthful days of the 90s when they first met, gatecrashing the swimming pool parties in suburban LA. Actually the entire idea, execution and irreverent brand statement resonated well. And in a season awash with digital firsts, this backward glance made you stop to think for a touch longer than usual. We’ll gloss over the nod to future-facing tech with OC’s debut collection of wearables, a collaboration with Intel, that made an appearance during the play.

London does Insta-commerce:

As the fash pack moves to London, there is more of a click-to-buy mood about the social-media led catwalk events planned for LFW.

Ever the democratiser, Topshop is hosting its ‘most socially accessible fashion show to date’ on Sunday. Via partnerships with Facebook and Instagram, the Topshop online community can instantly shop exclusive pieces from the new SS15 collection, as well as curate their own content from the show experience along with five influential Instagrammers who will populate the Topshop feed. All this social content will be visible, live and direct through a specially commissioned ‘digital mosaic’ triple-screen window installation at the Oxford Circus store, created by one of my favourite set design duos Hellicar & Lewis. It goes without saying that not only is the phygital window display interactive to passersby, this clever 360 degree social content campaign will influence how Topshop’s growing global stores merchandise their stores during LFW.

Topshop’s social curation interactive window for LFW SS15

In only its second outing at LFW, Hunter Original is dipping its rubber boot toe into the world of geo-locative video clips via a live catwalk collaboration with tech start-up Grabyo. During the show on Saturday, Grabyo will offer ten clips of real-time video content via Twitter, that can be curated, depending on where the brand’s followers are located. By following #Beahunteroriginal, someone in Los Angeles might see a short clip featuring festival gear, while a London viewer will probably be targeted with outdoor or rainwear more in keeping with the British climate. The Grabyo content is optimised for mobile viewing and immediately offers something more engaging and relevant to Hunter Original’s live-streaming global show audience.

Hunter Original SS15 at LFW

Lastly, Henry Holland is pushing the boundaries of how physical and digital meet this season, with another click-to-buy initiative, this time via the virtual e-commerce fit specialist Metail. The designer’s House of Holland show will be live-streamed on a dedicated site: where his online fan base can literally try before they buy, utilizing the Metail technology that allows anyone to create a digital MeModel of themselves after inputting simple height, weight and bra size measurements. This digital collaboration is functional over fluffy and has the power to educate Holland’s customers – a useful tool, especially when amplified by the designer’s huge social following.

Finally, it wouldn’t be LFW without talking about what Burberry‘s digital plans are this season. To coincide with the launch of its new fragrance MyBurberry, the luxury brand is going all out to offer fans their own personalised bottle, featuring a suite of digital customisation elements across both social and retail platforms.

By logging on to MyBurberry.com, smartphone users can ‘order’ a virtual bottle with their initials engraved, and see it beamed across giant digital billboards in London’s Piccadilly Circus and New York’s Meatpacking District. There’s also a personalised retail campaign at Sephora and Selfridges, that allows customers to purchase their initialised bottles ,while online, interactive advertising banners encourage fans to create virtual bottles that are instantly shared across social media.

For the show on Monday, Burberry is one of only a few early adopters of Twitter’s beta ‘buy it’ button, that launched last week. Now Burberry’s global Twitter audience can instantly buy the nail colours featured on the runway (sneak peek below). Twitter-commerce has truly arrived.

Ask Alison: what does it all mean?

This fashion week season, digital has truly come to the fore. The concept of live-streaming is evolving and changing with our always-on visual-language culture. Brands are increasingly preferring to democratize the show experience where Insta-commerce is woven into the execution. In an age where ubiquitous selfies know no bounds, social is the fastest moving media that is even recasting how retail operates.

by retail_plannerMenswear gets phygital here at @mrporterlive X @clubmonaco with an early #LCM soirée celebrating the arts of grooming, style & media at the new Club Monaco boutique #effortless #cobranding